Mass Believers, Tribes and Hoffer

Around twenty years ago, long after my college days, I picked up the book....True Believer, by Eric Hoffer.   Hoffer wrote this as his first book.....on the track of an intellectual (without a degree) and published this in 1951.  

It's his personal study of fanatical mass movements and how they get started, and where they start to run out of hype or enthusiasm.  Oddly, someone recommends True Believer to President Eisenhower at the time.....he reads it....and soon recommends it to each member of his staff. 

Hoffer was a guy who read a great deal of history, with works by literally hundreds of different historians.  He was also a guy who sat down and spent a great deal of time assembling the information, and asking himself what all of this added up to and where it went in terms of society and our remarkable world.  

I read True Believer before 9-11, and again in recent months....I kept going back to read portions of the book, and finally decided that I'd read it from cover to cover once again....this time from the prospective of radical Islam, and the multicultural environment of Germany within the background of Hoffer's vision.

I've come to this vision of the society's interactions, within a "lab" of sorts, and would like to add one single chapter onto the end of Hoffer's book.  My vision would add the term "tribalism".  

Tribalism typically means a state of being.....organized or advocating for.....a tribe or group of tribes.  This is usually where people think or act-up or behave in a way more closely associated to their tribe, rather than their friends, their country, their culture, or some 'other' social grouping.

In the case of Germany today, there are a number of 'tribes'.

There's the multicultural tribe, which talks up a rather large group and tries to stay focused on the happiness of this large tribe.  There's communications and fellowship going on, where everyone seems to share in this vision ahead.  There's limits to "multi-culty", but you keep reinforcing the discussions with a party-like atmosphere and hope that people will drain out their personal culture enough, and water things down enough.....that things just continue to slide forward.

There's the Germanic tribe, which talks up only Teutonic and Germanic values.  It's Kaiser this, and Weimar-Republic that, with a sprinkle of enthusiasm for good side of National Socialism (Nazi), and a liking anything that is pure Germanic in nature.

There's the Turkish tribe, which really isn't Turk anymore but people visit the relatives once in a while, remember five-hundred words of Turkish, like Turkish-German comedians, and go fairly lite on religious talks, culture, or social business.

There's the elite and intellectual tribe, which owns most the authority over state-run TV, hypes up opera, ballet, classical music, and literary classics.  They can never understand why you aren't attracted to their message or enthusiasm for whatever they hype this week.

There's the mild form of Islam tribe, which wants to point off bad stuff to their associates in the bad form of Islam tribe.  They try to keep their conservative edge....whine about radical lifestyles, utter criticism over too much boobage being shown, and get negative about far-right extremists.

There's the wild and far extreme Islam tribe, which just wants everyone non-Muslim to get whacked and fantasize about a world that is set to 700 AD standards and mostly features cloaked women.

These tribes are all in conflict....around the clock....twenty-four hours a day, and those who don't fit into these tribal 'theater' groups....are mostly sitting there and shaking their heads over fake nature of warfare being waged and conducted by the tribes.

Americans aren't much better....our tribal conflict mess is treated more as entertainment than anything else.

I think if Hoffer was around today....he'd probably work a revision of his book and you'd see tribal conflict as the centerpiece of mass believers.

So, anyway.....I advocate a reading of True Believer as a book because it probably will bring you to a fair amount of pondering.  It's a book you can purchase off Amazon's Kindle Reader unit for 99-cents and read over a long week.  If you questioned how so many people have fallen into a mass movement and why it's so enticing.....the book would help you in understanding the mess.

Frauchenhändedruckphobia

Frauchenhändedruckphobia is not really a word.....at least not yet, but I'm pushing for it to enter the topics world.

I probably screwed up in not using Latin but for this essay, it'll work fine.

This gets brought up today because of a short news article on Focus today.....discussing the tribal custom among Islamic peoples of men not shaking a woman's hand.  It's one of the first times that I noticed the term "tribe" used but it really does shake up the conversation a good bit when you reach a stage of identifying a group of people with certain tendencies and habits.

In the world of definitions.....a tribe can be described as a distinctive group of people.....dependent on their land, their culture, their religion....for their survival, and generally not integrated into a national society.

Frauchenhändedruckphobia is where you have the irrational fear of shaking hands with only women. 

I like the word because in the true style of making up new German words.....it meets the 24-letter minimum rule.  Germans get all weepy-eyed when you can invent words like this and it takes a bunch of letters to utter.

Where did this rule about not shaking women's hands come from?  Historians are somewhat divided.  Some will cite general Middle Eastern hospitality and that shaking hands wasn't a tradition there until western folks arrived (as in the Roman days).  As for the original handshake tradition?  Most historians will point at Greece around 5th Century BC where it's recorded that men shook hands.

My humble opinion is that eventually....some satirist will pick up this Frauchenhandelruckphobia thing and say they can't shake hands with anyone (male or female) but they can rub elbows with anyone (male or female), and another satirist will come up to say he can't shake hands, but he can rub feet with anyone.  Yet another satirist will stand up to say he can rub noses with other men, but not women.....suggesting that he could shake his butt with a woman's butt but not a man's butt.

When you go back two thousand years ago, there were literally thousands of tribes spread around Europe, and they all had unique tribal customs.  For the last twenty centuries, they've all been working hard to integrate and funnel themselves into a limited tribe of one singularity.   So they've met up now with a tribe of people with differing habits and it's hard to adjust to the fact that it's a two-tribal society in the making....something that hasn't been the norm in an awful long period of time.

And behind all of this.....Frauchenhändedruckphobia laying there as some irrational fear or phobia....which neither group can discuss much in public because it begs questions.

Never Blast Ex-Voters for Your Party

Bild, the German daily newspaper, ran a piece today (short in terms of facts and quotes) that simply indicates that the CDU boss, Chancellor Angela Merkel, has agreed to a party platform change.....trying to outmaneuver the AfD Party (the anti-immigration party).

This apparently came out of a party meeting held yesterday.

So, there is some type of new strategy being formatted.  The key factor to it?  The rumor is that the CDU will NOT bash the AfD voters or party in public forums. Evidently, they've reached a point where they realize now that every hard knock that they applied to departing CDU voters....ensured that they would not easily come back (that must have been an Einstein moment when they realized that factor).

Other than that rumor.....Bild really didn't have much to say.  My humble guess is that they got some insider interview and some high-ranking CDU guy wanted to give them some 'valuable' insight, which was an hour's worth of words....of which it equals eight lines in some miserably short newspaper column.

Here's the thing.....we are roughly around six months away from state elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommen.....both eastern states in Germany.  The typical win ought to be mostly the CDU and Linke Party in some race to get a combined fifty-to-sixty percent of the vote....in each election.  My suspicion is that the AfD Party will top twenty-percent in both state elections, and carve out a chunk of CDU, SPD, and Linke party votes.  I also think the Green Party might do better than average and suddenly start to worry people.

But the question here....which I wish the Bild reporter would have asked.....so what's going to be the new CDU policy on integration, refugees and asylum?  Presently, you just get this feeling that they really hope that Turkey stops the immigrants, and that they stay below 400,000 for 2016.  Other than that, and hoping for no more Koln riots......it's a pretty weak political position.....simply based on "hope".

Come spring of next year.....I think the CDU will be asking where they screwed up and just trying to find some crazy way to get twenty-five percent of the national vote in the federal election.  Some will regret the Merkel vision on immigration, but it's too late to fix anything.

If You Were A Truly Conservative Religious Guy

Since the weekend hype here in Germany with the AfD and their various comments over Islam.....I've spent a fair amount of time pondering over the AfD's statements, Muslims in Germany, and come to this one odd prospective.

If you were a fairly conservative guy with concrete values, tied to a unchangeable lifestyle, and longing for a unprogressive culture....what country would you really desire?

There are roughly 180-odd countries in the world.  Each has hundreds of pluses and minuses.  If you were looking for a country where economic freedoms were top priority.....Germany would probably rank up there in the top ten.

If you were looking for affordable lifestyles?  Germany would probably be in the bottom twenty-five countries (even Germans would agree that life is pretty expensive).

If you were looking for lax-on-tax atmosphere....Germany would probably be ranked number 170 out of the 180-odd countries (they even tax dogs here).

So you take these values and toss them into some prospective about conservative lifestyles.

Sexually-suggestive advertising in public....around the clock....twenty-four hours a day?

Male and female models on TV ad's with sex blazing across the screen?

Sexually suggestive lyrics on TV and radio....twenty-four hours a day?

German women displaying legs and boobs at maximum power?

Public alcohol consumption....around the clock?

Alcohol packed even into chocolates?

Affordability for large families?  Almost unaffordable, unless dad has some technical expertise that pays off big-time.

One of the larges atheistic populations in the world today?  A land where people quit their religion almost minute-by-minute.

Pure German humor and satire, blasting away at conservative lifestyles and cultures, daily?

Constant reminders daily of the Christian environment that you live?

No waivers by the government or business community during the Ramadan period when people are weak, dehydrated and less-than-fully-capable?

Go down the list and try to find any of these to be of comfortable for a heavily conservative lifestyle person.  If you are a Muslim parent....you live in constant fear that some fourteen-year-old peer in your kid's class will hype up and talk on the reason why they are a atheist or why no God exists.  Even if just one Muslim kid out of fifty who listens and believes in his new atheist-friend's comments....then you have to worry that this former Muslim kid will talk to other Muslim kids and pass the message around.

If your dream in life was simply to leave the old country where life was dangerous and threatening your family.....you probably didn't do a lot of research or care where you went.  But in the priority of life.....if you ranked your religion and conservative culture as priority number one.....well....Germany is probably one of the last five countries on Earth where you'd want to settle into and hope to continue your old ways.

Politically, AfD is taking advantage of the public sentiment, and I do agree that between a quarter and half the nation has some some frustrations about this recent topic of theirs.  But for those of the conservative lifestyle who think they can flip this into some political situation and defend their cause....I think they are missing the bigger picture.  Slowly, year by year, they are watering-down their culture and dissolving members who simply slip out the backdoor and disappear into the sunset.  If you want the culture to continue....it'll have to be elsewhere.

Maybe I'm wrong about this.....but the more you think about Germany and where it's going.....it's a pretty charged up, progressive, sexually-open land.....with boobs, satire, booze, and suggestive thoughts lurking in the shadows.  This is not a place for weak-minded traditional guys.

A Tale of Two Donut Shops

For months in Mainz, a small American-style donut shop (the Tasty Donuts and Coffee Shop) tried to make it near the Romer Passage, and I noted yesterday.....it'd finally shut down.  There just wasn't enough interest or business.

Germans aren't really donut-minded.  Toss in the profit margin and it really does take an element of luck to succeed.

But as I transited through the Wiesbaden train-station yesterday.....I noticed a brand new Dunkin-Donuts operation in the big hallway.  It'd been an empty shop for months.....and some grand opening was underway yesterday.  Twenty-odd people were lined up and they were brisky selling donuts.  It's a high-traffic area and might succeed (high costs involved for the location though).

There are American trends that simply won't make it well in German business.  It's like taking some German trends which do well here in Europe.....but just won't go well in the US.

Right now in the Wiesbaden train-station, there are three morning-food item shops in existence already (before Dunkin-Donuts opened).  I'd take a guess that forty-thousand people transit in or out of the train-station each morning.  Maybe twenty-percent will buy a coffee on the way, and maybe half of the coffee-drinkers will buy some pastry.  The issue I see is that travelers in this facility drops off drastically on Saturday and Sunday, and by mid-afternoon on work-days....these Dunkin folks will see almost nothing going on.

Heidelberg Tips

I spent the day down in Heidelberg and will probably write a couple of essays tomorrow (with pictures).  I will offer some travel advice on the city and what to see.

1.  Heidelberg is a town that you really need a three-day weekend to get the full experience and see what there is to see.  Most is outdoors....so you'd be smart to do it between April and September.  Because of the tourist-magnet.....it's best to go Monday through Friday.

2.  Going by train.  The station is almost in mid-town, and if you live in Stuttgart or Frankfurt.....it's basically a 90-minute train ride. The Heidelberg train-station is on Kurfursten-Anlage (head east on Kurfursten).  Walking, it's a 12-minute walk till when you hit "3" going north, so take the left turn and head toward the river (five minutes and you are at the river and old town area).  There is a IBIS hotel at the train-station, but you could do a lot better (particularly on the north side of the river....the Astoria).  There's supposed to be a new renovated deal (Heidelberg Suites) on the waterfront of the northside, with a boat-restaurant.

3.  Mark Twain's hotel is on the north side of the river and up by the dam (far east side of town).  It's still there and probably worth seeing.

4.  Hauptstrasse in the old town area is the tourist magnet area.....coffee shops, old buildings, etc.  If you make that your reference point.....you will do well.

5.  The tram at Burgweg strasse....is point where you pay 7-Euro for a round-trip ticket to the top of the hill, and the castle.  Note that on weekends.....it's heavy with tourist traffic.  The tram will drop you off about 300 feet from the castle.  When you return to the tram point, you can go further up the hill and get off at a scenic point.  There, a second tram (the 1873 tram) will take you to the very top.  It's worth doing this but I should note that the very top point is a place where you'd get off....take a dozen pictures.....sip a beer or coffee....and get back on the old tram to return to the bottom of the hill.  You can eat up four hours just on the castle, tram ride and coffee.

6.  The castle itself is under some renovation and don't be expecting some four-star experience.  It's worth the time to go up but I wouldn't expect to be there for more than two hours.  The museum that you see....is the pharmacy science museum (not related to the castle), and it's probably not worth seeing unless you get all chocked up over aspirin.

7.  At the far east side of town is Karlstor (interesting item to see) and the dam.  Put aside an hour for the two.

8.  A key factor to Heidelberg is walking.  There is a all-day bus and U-Bahn ticket which might help to some degree.  But I would have good shoes on and anticipate being exhausted by the end of the day.

9.  Between architecture and scenes of the old town....you need to set aside an entire afternoon for just walking around.  The 'Alte Brucke' (the old bridge) is a mandatory thing to walk over.

10.  There are a lot of 'chicky-micky' cafes and restaurants in Heidelberg.  There are places where tourists typically stop and they will serve an authentic regular dinner.  It won't be special or taste that great, but it makes the tourists happy.  Such a place exists in the basement of the castle itself.  My advice is limit yourself and go outside of town to some of the finer places that the locals will visit.

Of the ten top places to go and visit as an American in Germany.....I put Heidelberg up near the top five.  It's one of those places where you rough it for eight hours and have a great time seeing a fair part of the town, and a year later come back....to see what you missed.  The one negative is finding parking and that's why I recommend the tour-bus route, or taking the train into town (remember if you live in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg, you can get the state ticket for five people and travel all day within B-W on that one ticket.....staying off the ICE trains of course).

The Monitoring Story

A topic came up late Friday in Germany.....some political folks want mosques in Germany to be monitored.  This comes mostly from the CDU and CSU folks.

The need from this is driven by continual intelligence reports that the BND and cops hand over....where there is recruitment and activities which are illegal by German law reported.....coming out of the Muslim "political" activities.

If you wanted a mass discussion with vast implications involving basic rights and religion....this would be the driving force.

You'd think that a logical German guy would sit there and think about this....how it'd work, and if it was worthless in nature.  There are probably over a thousand Muslim mosques and religious centers around the country.  Some are simply a store-front operation where some guy dispenses information on Islam, offers people coffee or tea, and you just wonder how deep the money pockets are as they pay rent and utilities each month.

Where would all these Muslim-speaking cops or audit guys come from?  One might be amused as the Green Party folks or some political group might recommend hiring Syrian refugees to be the mosque-audit guys or "watchers".  What happens if some female shows up to be the audit person or watcher?  I'm guessing that all heck would break loose and hostile feelings would be uttered by the congregations.

Personally, I think this is all a waste of time and effort to go and pretend to be watching or viewing prayer services.  Just finding enough people who can translate and interpret will make this an impossible task.  Having someone around the facility twenty-four hours a day?  It's a joke.

So, I'd suggest three simple acts to be written up for a draft law.

1.  Require all religions (to include the Catholics, Buddhists, Muslims and whoever).....that have a facility in operation.....to have a board or group of elders...voted by the congregation.  Doesn't matter if it's five or seven or nine members.....but they are the ones who are responsible for the front door and financial affairs of the church.  If you have five or six young guys from this congregation that run off to some ISIS war.....require the elders to confront the problem and settle the situation, or shut down the operation permanently.  If the elders don't want to perform their job.....they get fired, and the congregation has another election.  Same results?  Shut down the facility.

2.  Transparent money.  Let everyone know.....their money will be part of some public examination and the audit will be going on every single quarter.  If money gets moved into the country via some secret method.....the religious figure involved is terminated from his profession and gets dragged in for money-laundering.  Make the law applicable for Catholics as well....who might go and spent 30-odd million Euro on some useless renovation project.

3.  Ensure it's written in stone for all Germans.....there's a door to join a religion, and a door to exit a religion.  Anyone preventing or forbidding one's exit.....will be dragged into court and face a judge.  A couple of dozen individuals might get one-way tickets into jail in the first year....but eventually, people would learn that they'd best not threaten anyone who quits his religion.
 

AfD Congress Meeting

Roughly two thousand delegates of the AfD Party (the Alternative for Deutschland, or anti-immigrant group) met yesterday (Sat) in Stuttgart, for the party congress meeting.

Based on news media reports (both state-run and newspapers), I can make five observations.

First, they were mostly going to talk over fourteen key points of their policy program for this weekend meeting.  It's supposed to end by early afternoon today (Sun).  So far, as they closed last night....they had wrapped up the talk and vote on two topics.  The odds that all fourteen topics will get talked on and voted?  I have my doubts.

There was a fair amount of discussion over the anti-Muslim platform, and I think that consumed half of the meeting yesterday.  It's safe to say that after immigration and integration issues....this will rank up near the top on their agenda.

Second, two thousand members showed up and the hall was fairly full and enthusiastic.  The crowd outside?  Well....cops had to show up because around 500 to 1,000 protesters were gathered, and got pretty rowdy.  The news media was careful and only filmed very minor portions of the anti-AfD groups.  My guess is that it was such a small group in the protest.....that they didn't really want to do wide-film shots and show just three-hundred folks in some big scene (mighty limited deal if it was less than 500).

Third, the AfD is staking out a position of not allowing Turkey into the EU.  It'll be curious how this plays out and if some national pattern of German support also goes in this direction.  For years, it was pretty much concreted down that neither the SPD or CDU would support Turkey's entry.   The Greens were in opposition to this.  With the immigration crisis in full bloom and the necessity of Turkey holding back the refugees.....both the CDU and SPD has to bend over backwards to make Turkey happy.

Fourth, based on comments and speeches....none of the AfD leadership folks did anything really stupid in their speeches yesterday.  They did hammer away at Chancellor Merkel and positions by the CDU/SPD government. While things were a bit slow, at least by judging the comments by the reporters....nothing went wrong at the meeting so far.

Fifth, if national leadership out of Berlin were hoping that things were lessening and voters were going to return to the wonderful umbrella of the CDU and SPD parties (center-right and center-left), I think the meeting displays the ongoing trend of popular support and long-term strategy by the AfD.....to the journalists, intellectuals, and Berlin leadership.  AfD is the only alternative for these major issues.  Whether by accident or orchestrated in a purposeful way....all five parties in Berlin basically have diluted themselves enough to be one functional group without much difference.  If this were a brewery with five distinctive beers in production, and they all tasted the same....the brewery would be in trouble.

A final note.....they did cover an odd group of AfD....the Saarland AfD branch....which had a number of connections back to the pro-Nazi crowd.  After some debate....they removed this branch and require a new group to band together and apply for membership within the national AfD Party.  In some ways, they are trying to make sure their brand and their culture isn't too "brown" or gets too much negativity by the news media.

For the two state elections in the fall, this probably sets up a number of positives and three months from now....the next big meeting will be the entry into another election period.